HC order on World Cup contracts on Wednesday

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court will pronounce its judgement on a petition challenging the controversial ICC players' contract on Wednesday. A Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Devinder Gupta and Justice B D Ahmed reserved the order for January 22 after a nearly three-hour hearing on Monday.

The court on Friday had issued notices to the Centre, International Cricket Council (ICC) and its marketing arm ICC Development International, BCCI, RBI and eight sponsoring companies, on the petition filed by former Union minister and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president N K P Salve and former cricketers Kapil Dev as well as Madan Lal.

Besides seeking an amicable settlement to the controversy over signing of ICC contracts by Indian players, the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by them also sought a prohibition on release of foreign exchange to Indian sponsors of the World Cup if the Indian players are debarred from the upcoming tournament in South Africa.

The other petitioners were former West Bengal Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray, international umpires Ram Babu Gupta and Shyam Kumar Bansal. In the PIL, the petitioners said if the Indian players were disqualified or debarred from playing in the World Cup, or any punitive action taken against the BCCI..."no foreign exchange is released and/no other benefit or concession is given to any Indian entity/company/ sponsor/advertiser," on the ground that the conditions imposed on the players were "stringent and unreasonable".